Photography by Kay Chernush
Bernstein Gallery, Princeton University
Exhibition dates: February 16 – March 27, 2009

Panel Discussion: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 from 4:30 to 6 p.m., Bowl 016, Robertson Hall,
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs,
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

Panelists: Kay Chernush, Photographer; E. Benjamin Skinner, Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Kathy Maskell, U.S. Advocacy Director, Love146; Moderator, Stanley Katz, Professor of Public and International Affairs and Director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Woodrow Wilson School.
Public reception to follow panel discussion in the Bernstein Gallery at 6 p.m.

Contact: Kate Somers
Phone: 609.497.2441
 

“Bought and Sold: Faces of Modern Day Slavery”, photography on loan from the World Bank, is a pictorial essay of one of the most devastating embodiments of mankind’s savagery toward its own. Kay Chernush’s photographs give the viewer an unflinching portrayal of human trafficking which represents one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises in the world. The sale of human beings is the third most profitable criminal activity after drug and arms trafficking, and Chernush captures it as it unfolds in both the hidden shadows of the underworld, and in broad daylight across several continents.

Images include exploited women in brothels, bonded child laborers in textile and brick factories, enslaved children on fishing vessels, as well as images of parents in search of their stolen children from Europe, Africa and India. Other images depict abused women who have begun to rebuild their lives with the help of non-governmental organizations, and victimized children attending special schools where they receive counseling and education. In writing about her human trafficking work, the photographer explains, “My photographs are an attempt to put a human face on the statistics and headlines, to tell the stories of modern-day enslavement and the journey towards freedom.”

Kay Chernush is a leading US photographer with 25 years of experience in commercial and fine art photography. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and recipient of a Fulbright grant to India, she started out as a writer but became hooked on photography while working for the Peace Corps in West Africa. She has photographed more than 50 feature stories for SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE and shoots for many other national and international publications and major corporations. Recently she has turned her attention to personal projects involving her experience with breast cancer, empathy and tribal stereotypes. Her interest in issues related to human trafficking began with an assignment for the State Department in 2005, work that has been exhibited at the United Nations in New York and Vienna and at the World Bank in Washington, DC. An on-going audio-visual project on sex-trafficking will be exhibited in Amsterdam in the fall of 2009.